Dawlish Warren in N gauge

[Chris M]

I've posted a few photos of my layout here & there on RMWEB but I've decided to put a few together this topic. Dawlish Warren was started just before lockdown and was complete by October 2021. In a strange way Covid was useful because I was able to get on with the build without life getting in the way. One of my issues with model railway exhibitions is that too many layouts are still built on flat boards. One of the great things about modelling a real location is that you quickly realise that the land either side of a railway is almost never dead flat and almost never at the same height as the track.  It is a great shame that some exquisite modelling is rather spoilt by putting it on a dead flat board. Getting back onto topic  I have used the open top baseboard technique since the 1980s in order to avoid this unrealistic flatness.

 

For my Dawlish Warren project I started with a plan (as you would expect) and then printed this out full size to see how it looked. From this plan I worked out the spot heights for the layout edges and crossmembers and then cut up some ply. The photos will show I am something of a bodger when it comes to carpentry.

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Chris M

[Chris M]

I cut up the full sized plan to make templates for the track baseboard and then cut out the ply for the track to be laid on. I also painted everything in order to seal the ply. The layout isn't always inside the house and this helps to prevent any unwanted movement. 

 

The layout doesn't look overly hopeful in this photo but all the elements are in place and will come good.

 

I build layouts in N gauge nowadays. All layout building is a compromise and, bearing in mind the space I had, it was a case of running 5/6 coach expresses in 00 or 10/11 coach trains in N. Once I was used to running full length trains in N there was no turning back to 00. If one day I suddenly find a room that is 25ft long I might go back to 00. Come to that if I had a room that was 50ft long I would be inclined to go 0!

[Chris M]

Eighteen months or so later and I think the open baseboard construction has worked well....

 

 

 

Luckily for me the room is dedicated to the railway so I was able to make a poster from photos I had taken and put it on the wall behind the layout.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Chris M

[Chris M]

Just a few more photos

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Chris M

[Chris M]

Having the ground level both lower and higher than the track makes such a difference to a layout.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Chris M

[Chris M]

A short video running 1980s

 

[Chris M]

And another one in the same era

 

[Chris M]

Back in the days of steam

 

[Chris M]

And my favourite era - the 1960s. I might post more, this is just of the clayliner train which I think is quite relaxing. I only paid £20 for that Warship secondhand because it was such a bad runner, not bad eh? I did take the chassis apart and rebuild it but I didn't buy any new parts.

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Chris M

[KeithMacdonald]

@Chris M - very nice, thanks! 😀

Nice background views towards Exmouth, Langstone Cliff looks very good too.

 

I can remember being allowed inside the signal box on the down platform, c.1968, when Mr Morris was on duty.

The Golf Clubhouse, beside the station, was run by Mr & Mrs Clark.

Not sure who ran the caravan site, but I can remember working there c. 1972 during the summer holidays.

 

[Chris M]

Just a few more photos. The whole layout was designed around the 1960's hydraulic era and this is still my favourite.

 

Class 22 approaching the curve at Langstone Rock

 

Warship on an up express

 

Western Champion on a down train. I always book a window table when I go to the Mount Pleasant Inn and have seen Champion pass by on a railtour.

 

Afternoon milk for Kensington

Edited May 14, 2023 by Chris M

[Chris M]

I somehow strayed into the 1980's which is still perfectly acceptable for the buildings and signals.

 

Here is William Cookworthy with a train of CDAs. We know that CDAs weren't seen outside of Cornwall very often but it was around this time that the new CDAs travelled down to Cornwall to replace the old clay wagons. I view these as being new wagons on their way to Cornwall and so they have had only the lightest of weathering.

 

 

[Chris M]

More recently I have lost the plot completely and gone contemporary. The semaphores and building remain firmly rooted in the 1960s. Somehow I find I can live with this.

 

 

[Multigauge]

Love the video of the large logo 50 storming round the bends. 

[Chris M]

I now have to make a decision. When the layout goes to Swindon Steam Museum exhibition in September, what stock do I run?

 

1963

 

1968

 

 

1980s

 

or contemporary

 

I usually run 1963 or 1968 at exhibitions but maybe a change would be good.

[GWRPhil]

Having been born in the 80s and living in Devon. I would go 80s and contemporary. The class 50s in period were great and contemporary is always bright and there’s plenty of leeway for pretty much any special you can think of including running 60s coaching stock behind 37 pairs. Plenty of rail tours have them. Although further down in Cornwall this rail tour passed through the warren

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by GWRPhil

[porkie]

Hell's Bell's this is a awesome bit of modelling.

 

Thanks for sharing your handy work. 

 

Really love those HST pictures 

[Davexoc]

Can you do late 70s into the 80s? Still reasonable amount of freight.

Last of the Westerns (although I missed them) with 25s being replaced by 37s, and lots of Peaks on XC workings...

You can throw in an early WoE HSTs and 50s in the early days of refurbishment...

 

 

[Chris M]

A bit more 1980s

 

 

 

 

[Chris M]

I only allow loco types that have been through the real Dawlish Warren to be used on my Dawlish Warren. Just my rule but I like it. So far as I can see there has only been one working of a blue pullman train through Dawlish Warren. A friend of mine brought his Farish pullman round which was nice but I told him he couldn't bring it again as the real thing only went through once (well it may have been four times but it was just the one special charter). I have recently started to build a new layout especially for my N gauge locos that are not allowed on Dawlish Warren.

 

I do run railtour trains both for the 1980s and current day. I love the Princess Coronation class so here is Duchess of Hamilton which did quite a bit of main line work in the 1980s in charge of the Royal Duchy - a headboard still used on railtours through Dawlish Warren today.

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris M]

11 hours ago, Davexoc said:

Can you do late 70s into the 80s? Still reasonable amount of freight.

Last of the Westerns (although I missed them) with 25s being replaced by 37s, and lots of Peaks on XC workings...

Getting hold of N gauge peaks in blue is currently next to impossible. Rapido have promised to do 45 & 46 if the 44 they are working on is a success. The 44 is of no use whatsoever to me. I know Farish intended to do a re-tooled peak at some point but I imagine that has now been put on ice. Unless they decide to meet Rapido head on.

 

in the meantime I have a P&D Marsh kit that just needs banger blue paint, windows and transfers adding. It sits on a very old Farish class 40 chassis and runs quite well since I got some new gears for it. Hopefully she will be brought into service later this year.

 

Ok not up to today’s standards of RTR but she will look ok if I don’t screw up the top coat.

[ianb3174]

Perfect scene setting. 

[Chris M]

There aren't many buildings on this layout but of course they are all scratchbuilt. Finding how things were back in the 1960s isn't easy, even at a holiday destination. Nowadays we just shoot as many photos as we like but back then each photo had a cost (the film and the developing) so far less photos were taken. I have had to glean what information I can from going through all the books I could find with photos. I spent a happy afternoon at Newton Abbot library going through all the books they had. Newton Abbot library does have a very good collection of railway books.

 

Anyhow a few photos of the buildings. In one book I found a photo of a Western which was from 1966 or thereabouts - the Western was maroon but the paint was worn and the coaches were all maroon. In the corner of this photo there is a little bit of useful information for my buildings which I blew up to see more clearly.

 

From this I built The Warren Store.

 

 

I did notice the little white hut in the photo but didn't know anything about it so left it out of the layout. When on display at the Exeter exhibition a number of people asked me where the banana fritter stand was. Despite a lot of research and requests on Facebook I still have not found a photo of the banana fritter stand. Looking back at the little white hut in the photo I could see it had some gas bottles attached so it therefore sold something that was cooked in some way. I also knew the banana fritter stand was somewhere in that area. So I decided to build my version of the banana fritter stand based on very limited information. This stand is not to be confused with the later banana fritter stand that was a completely different shape and on the opposite corner.

 

 

[Chris M]

Considering I had only made one building from scratch before this layout I am happy with the way they turned out.

 

 

 

The footbridge is a modified P&D Marsh kit.

 

 

[Tartaruga]

10 minutes ago, Chris M said:

There aren't many buildings on this layout but of course they are all scratchbuilt. Finding how things were back in the 1960s isn't easy, even at a holiday destination. Nowadays we just shoot as many photos as we like but back then each photo had a cost (the film and the developing) so far less photos were taken. I have had to glean what information I can from going through all the books I could find with photos. I spent a happy afternoon at Newton Abbot library going through all the books they had. Newton Abbot library does have a very good collection of railway books.

 

Anyhow a few photos of the buildings. In one book I found a photo of a Western which was from 1966 or thereabouts - the Western was maroon but the paint was worn and the coaches were all maroon. In the corner of this photo there is a little bit of useful information for my buildings which I blew up to see more clearly.

 

From this I built The Warren Store.

 

I did notice the little white hut in the photo but didn't know anything about it so left it out of the layout. When on display at the Exeter exhibition a number of people asked me where the banana fritter stand was. Despite a lot of research and requests on Facebook I still have not found a photo of the banana fritter stand. Looking back at the little white hut in the photo I could see it had some gas bottles attached so it therefore sold something that was cooked in some way. I also knew the banana fritter stand was somewhere in that area. So I decided to build my version of the banana fritter stand based on very limited information. This stand is not to be confused with the later banana fritter stand that was a completely different shape and on the opposite corner.

 

 

 

I've always thought it was a shame there is no national archive for images of landscape and architecture. All depends on how good the local archive is.

As you said Newton Abbot has a good library collection. I think it would be good for a national diary archive like Italy has. - http://archiviodiari.org/